30 days to Polish and gratitude comes to an end

My first monthly challenge ended yesterday. Here are my thoughts on how I did and whether it was worth it.

Gratitude

My first challenge was keeping a daily list of things that I’m grateful for or things that I enjoyed during that day. The main aim was to focus on more positive parts on the day so I don’t feel like I’m engulfed by darkness when a negative thing happens.

Looking through my list, it seems like extremely small things were worth writing down. I didn’t need to be kissed on the cheek by a fairy or win the lottery everyday to find something that was worth smiling about. A large number of the things were simple. For example, enjoying a sandwich or noticing that the moon looked big one night.

Simply trying to find a positive thing put me in a better state of mind. Maybe temporarily. It might have lasted for the rest of the day. Regardless of how long it lasted, it was much better than being negative for the whole day.

I’d recommend you try it too.

Polish

This part of the challenge required me to simply learn a new word each day. I did that and a little bit of grammar but I can’t honestly say I’m better off. While the challenge was successful, I don’t think the challenge was useful in my aim to learn the language.

It was too passive and didn’t really force me to actively learn the language. I could make much more progress if I changed the challenge to make it more demanding. Speaking more often would help.

Overall, I’m happy I did the challenges. I will continue with gratitude and make changes to my Polish attempt. I’m unsure of what I’ll do for my next challenge but I’ll think of something, if I decide to do it this month.